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In Season Three: Episode Two- While Luis finds himself sinking further into servitude on the farm, Isaac tries to protect Coy from abusive conditions in the fields. Meanwhile, Jeanette begins to wonder if her family is down-playing a trailer fire, which killed a number of their undocumented workers. Nicole Wilder/ABC hide caption

In Season Three: Episode Two- While Luis finds himself sinking further into servitude on the farm, Isaac tries to protect Coy from abusive conditions in the fields. Meanwhile, Jeanette begins to wonder if her family is down-playing a trailer fire, which killed a number of their undocumented workers.

As in its past two seasons, ABC's anthology series American Crime opens with a timely and provocative image. In a nondescript desert near the U.S./Mexican border, a group of men and women are being smuggled into the United States. They manage to cut through a gap in the wall that already divides the two countries. Quickly though, viewers learn that the red-capped man the show is asking us to follow isn't interested in merely nabbing a farm job in nearby Texas or California. He has his eyes set on North Carolina. His reasons are slowly revealed throughout the show's eight-episode run as it turns out he's looking for someone who might have gone missing from one of the farms in the state.

For producers John Ridley and Michael J. McDonald, the decision to set this season, which tackles immigration and labor, in North Carolina was both creatively and politically significant.

Not only does this Southern state have a long history of segregation, but the rising numbers of Latin American immigrants coming into its rural areas is rapidly changing the state. North Carolina stands as a microcosm of America today, a perfect tinder box that offers insights into immigration from a different vantage point. "We wanted to look at a place," McDonald said, where that "wasn't baked into the system, like California or Arizona, but a place where this influx of immigrants from Mexico and Central America was a new phenomenon and how that was reflected in a state where there was a history of racial tension." This is why the narrative about Luis Salazar (played by Benito Martinez), that red-capped man making his way to the North Carolina tomato farms who ends up witnessing the abuse and exploitation happening in these rural areas, feels so different from past attempts at putting a face on the illegal immigration debate.

"You say 'slavery' and people think you're hysterical," we hear social worker Abby Tanaka (played by Sandra Oh), say at one point early in the season as she speaks about the undocumented workforce in the state. "Well, we are not. In North Carolina alone 39 percent of the state's 150,000 farm workers report being illegally trafficked or otherwise abused. That is physical abuse, sexual abuse, death threats and wage theft. There's always the possibility of exposure to farm chemicals," she says. The backdrop for all this is an agricultural industry that pumps over $200 billion into the American economy annually. Such fact-loaded scenes in American Crime don't feel as heavy-handed because they underline the way stories about a young undocumented Mexican who goes missing, or about a young woman who's raped by the men who manage the farm where she works, reflect a larger for-profit machinery at work.

Ridley singles out the Hesby family whose tomato farm is at the center of the season's storyline. Their choice to hire a mostly undocumented workforce (via contractors) is a direct response to increased competition coming from other farms and from abroad. "You get the pressures that they're under," Ridley notes. "You get that they are being squeezed by some other organization." That's not to say the show is out to exonerate them. But nor is it out to blankly indict them. "No one person is so utterly heroic, and nor are they horrible," he said. He believes that reducing the issue to border jumping negates the economic and political tensions that both create and sustain a farming system that would fail without the workers who enter the United States illegally.

In real life, the complexities abound and can't be resolved at the end of a narrative arch.

Moises Serrano, an undocumented activist, has spent his entire life navigating the complexities. "Politicians try to simplify it but migration is an incredibly complex issue that cannot be boiled down to rhetoric and 140 characters in a tweet," he says. Serrano was brought into the U.S. when he was 18 months old. His parents settled in Yadkin county in North Carolina where he grew up. His undocumented status has not derailed him from trying to get an education and a well-paying job, while advocating for immigration reform and the DREAM act. Serrano points out that the hostile political climate against undocumented workers in the U.S., particularly in North Carolina, has been bolstered by a slew of policies and programs passed in the last decade. He points to the REAL ID Act of 2005, which modified the requirements needed to be issued a driver's license and to the expansion of e-Verify, an employment-verification program that checks a worker's immigration status, as moves that pushed undocumented people out of public spaces.

The workers' vulnerability makes the stories in this season of American Crime prescient. They uncover working and living conditions that most Americans rarely get to see. "Workers go missing all the time," one woman tells Luis while on his search for his son, "Nobody cares."

When doing research for this season, McDonald said he kept hearing a sense of fear from undocumented people when it came to asking for help, which he believes leads to an impunity that remains underreported and underrepresented. The show portrays the abuse and exploitation of workers in very bare terms: Farm workers refer to the fields as "The Green Motel," where they sexually abuse the few women around; the cruel intimidation tactics that keep workers from leaving lest they lose their wages or risk deportation. These are compounded by the fact that many in that position feel unable to seek help. "They're afraid to go to law enforcement or social workers for help," said McDonald. A 2013 study by the University of Chicago found that "70 percent of undocumented immigrants reported they are less likely to contact law enforcement authorities if they were victims of a crime."

Ridley says that "American Crime is less about crime and more about America." And so while a 911 call opens this season (a Spanish-language speaker informs us in voice-over that there's a body in the river), the show works hard to make its interwoven storylines make viewers grapple with the vision of America on their screens. Jeanette Hesby (played by Felicity Huffman) functions as an audience surrogate: upon learning of the deplorable conditions workers at her husband's family farm are living under, she sets out to become informed, knowing that she has to turn her outrage into action.

"The amount of people this is happening to, and how they're an invisible class that we have demonized, which is the worst thing about it. We've made them bad guys 'bad hombres,' as our friend Donald Trump likes to say," McDonald says. "But these are the people that are most abused in our society." That's what makes his heart break and what drives him to tell stories that open other people's eyes not just the plight of these particular characters, but to the systemic problems they represent.

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"American Crime" Takes On Farming And Illegal Immigration With An Unsparing Lens - NPR

The majority of Americans are the product of legal immigration. Our ancestors went through the process of becoming American citizens.

They came looking for work, not welfare.

Today, there are millions of illegals within our borders due to President Barack Obamas immigration policies.

Remember that it was illegal immigrants allowed into our country by President Bill Clinton who planned and executed the attacks of 9/11. How soon we forget.

There shouldnt be a single illegal immigrant in America from any country.

Newly elected Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez said, We are all in this together to fight the worst president in the history of the United States, referring to President Donald Trump.

What nonsense. Trump has been president less than two months.

Americans are not as stupid as the Democratic Party leadership continues to think. If you want to look at the worst president, review the past eight disastrous years.

Democratic liberals, including the media, cannot accept the fact that Trump was victorious in 86 percent of the counties across America, that Republicans have the majority in both houses of Congress, that 33 states have Republican governors and that Republicans control the majority of state legislatures.

America is not a true democracy, but rather a Democratic republic comprised of 50 individual states.

Without the Electoral College, every election would be determined by the larger cities and states, which is exactly why our Founding Fathers included it in the Constitution of the United States.

John Skubak

Johnstown

Originally posted here:
Letter to the editor | Blame Obama for illegal immigration issue - TribDem.com

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By the way, Texas has less than half the criminal alien jail and prison population of California, which has over 100,000 criminal aliens occupying facilities supported by California taxpayers. (For 2009 incarceration numbers for each state, see Appendix III of the 2011 GAO report, here.)

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Its no secret that progressive politicians in hundreds of cities and counties are opposing the Trump administration initiatives to end so-called sanctuary policies. What those politicians never talk about is the fact that those policies continue to allow tens of thousands of criminal aliens to go free instead of facing deportation proceedings as prescribed by federal law.

According to a summary report on sanctuary policies from Federation for American Immigration Reform and numerous media reports, its not just San Francisco, New York and Chicago that are obstructing federal deportation of violent criminals. About 300 local city and county jurisdictions have adopted official policies to refuse cooperation with immigration enforcement in open violation of federal law. And California is not the only place with a statewide sanctuary policy. For a map of principal sanctuary jurisdictions, go here.

You might think that Texas is a state with uniform cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, but you would be wrong. The capital city of Austin recently announced it will defy President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and the Governor of Texas by continuing its sanctuary policies.

Yes, theres a new sheriff in town, and citizens will soon have new protections if the new federal policies are followed. President Trumps January 25 executive order is only the beginning of the fight, and we can expect the ACLU and other open borders advocates will challenge new enforcement policies in federal courts.

Here is the political reality. Sanctuary policies across the country are an important pillar of the Obama Legacy, so progressives and the leaders of the Democratic Party are not going to abandon that legacy. This commitment by progressives makes immigration enforcement and the end of local sanctuary policies far more of a political issue than in the past.

Until Obamas election in 2008, there were only a handful of sanctuary cities across the nation, but the number skyrocketed after 2008 and now numbers over 300 according to a recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies. A 2016 report by the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice found 155 jurisdictions that limit or restrict cooperation with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

But as we said, there is a new sheriff in town and his deputies have been busy.

Trumps January 25 Executive Order was followed on February 20 by a Department of Homeland Security Memorandum titled, Enforcement of the Immigration Laws to Serve the National Interest. It is well worth reading in full.

This directive has many features that have already been welcomed as a breath of fresh air in the ranks of the officers of the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One section of the DHS Memorandum that has been largely overlooked by the media could well serve as a giant spotlight on the devastation in local communities caused by sanctuary policies.

A 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that the typical criminal alien inmate in federal prisons had been arrested 12 times for various offenses. On page 17 that GAO report is a summary of the arrest data for the criminal aliens in state and federal jails:

They were arrested for a total of about 2.9 million offenses, averaging about 12[each] slightly lower than the 13 offenses per criminal alien we reported in 2005.

The Texas DPS report cited above said criminal aliens arrested over that five-year period had been arrested for an average of 2.5 crimes. Taking the average number of crimes committed by ARRESTED criminal aliens as five, and extrapolating from the data on the total number of criminal alien inmates in state and local jails in 2016, the approximately 300,000 criminal aliens in state and local jails are responsible for over 1,500,00 crimes.

In Colorado, the 2,039 criminal aliens in the state prison system in 2016 were 14.7 percent of a prison population of 13,873. The 2016 annual report on the criminal aliens in the Colorado state prison system is here. The 14.7 percent can be easily calculated from the 2,039 inmates in a total prison population of 13,873 found in this document.

This 14.7 percent is over four times the illegal alien population share of total state population, estimated at 200,000 in 2013 by the Pew Hispanic Center.

It is true that even under Obamas lax policies on enforcement and deportations, local ICE offices routinely intercepted criminal alien felons being released from state prisons and deported the most violent among them. But it was a far different story for the thousands of criminals released from LOCAL jails in dozens of sanctuary jurisdictions, where federal ICE detainers were not being honored and violent criminals were routinely released to commit other crimes.

Even the pro-sanctuary Denver Post could not ignore two recent cases where an ICE detainer request was ignored and illegal aliens were released by the Denver jail and then arrested for homicide only weeks later. One case was a hit-and-run accident that left a young woman dead, and the second was a brutal murder at a light rail stop.

Unfortunately, our nations intrepid journalists are not routinely reporting on the thousands of crimes committed by criminal aliens who have been in police custody but then released because of sanctuary policies. It is conceivable that at least a half million serious crimes annually could be prevented if all illegal aliens convicted of felonies were deported and then prevented from returning by effective border controls.

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Tancredo - Illegal Aliens and Violent Crime: Some Amazing Facts ... - Breitbart News

With two women taking refugein Denver churches in the monthssince Donald Trump was elected president, the city is getting noticed as a place where the revivedsanctuary movement for people in the U.S. illegally has firmly taken root and could soon spread.

Denvers sanctuary cases, involving two mothers of American children, represent a third of all known cases nationwide, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Church World Service. That has promptedone immigration expert to cite Denver as a city on the vanguard of a movement that soon could blossom across the country, especially if the Trump administration continues to hold itshard-line stance.

I would definitely characterize Denver as a hot spot in the sanctuary movement, said Rev. Noel Andersen, a national grassroots faith coordinator with the Church World Service.

The organization, which tracks immigration trends across faith communities, says the number of congregations offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants has more than doubled to more than 800 nationwide since Trump was elected in November.

Weve been overwhelmed with requests, Andersen said.Theres a lot of fear in the immigrant community.

The movement here, largely limited to a half dozen or so liberal-leaning Unitarian Universalist and Quaker congregations, may soon expand to other faith communities.The United Methodist Church is offering a Sanctuary Churches Training seminar April 1 and 2 in Centennial, during which participants will hear from local immigration-rights advocates, legal professionals and members of the immigrant community about what it means to declare sanctuary.

More congregations are moving into an exploratory stage to see if they can participate in this new sanctuary movement, saidDaniel Klawitter, an admissions representative with the Iliff School of Theology and an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. The aggressive rhetoric has spurred folks to take it a little more seriously and to be more pre-emptive.

That rhetoric was an effective tool for Trump during his run for the White House, as the billionaire businessman hit a nerve with many Americans frustrated by illegal immigration. In all, there are an estimated 11 million to 12 million unauthorized immigrants in this country, with 130,000 living in the Denver metro area,according to a Pew Research Center report released last month.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

The presidents position on the issue hasnt softened since taking office, as evidenced by a travel ban he put in place against seven Muslim-majority countries that was almost immediately struck down by a federal judge.The new administration also rewrote immigration enforcement policies that would make any person in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, an enforcement priority. That includes people whose only offense is being in the country illegally.

While the previous administration wasnt shy about deporting people, immigrants whose only violation was being in the country without authorization were generally left alone.

Jennifer Piper, program director for interfaith organizing with the American Friends Service Committee in Denver, said the new presidents approach to immigration and the way peoples humanity was under attack during the presidential campaign is in large part responsible for reviving the sanctuary movement that began 30 years ago to help Central American immigrants, but lost momentum in recent years.

I think the rhetoric from the Trump campaign was the driver for that, she said. It was very visible and very disturbing for people of faith.

Since the election, Piper has received 60 inquiries from Colorado church leaders seeking information about establishing sanctuary space.

I think there will be more people claiming sanctuary over the next year, Piper said.

But not all of the clergy agrees on how the hot-button issue should be handled.

Mark Young, president of the Denver Seminary, said he has seen the debate play out among evangelical leaders who feel the tug of their conservative political ideology and the precepts of a faith that emphasize compassion and forgiveness.

Certainly, there are those who would see deportation as against the teachings of Christ, while others would say that following U.S. law is the moral thing to do, Young said. We have both voices.

Archdiocese of Denver spokeswoman Karna Swanson said in regard to providing sanctuary space, the citys Catholic community hasnt been approached for that type of assistance.

But she said the church, as a matter of its centuries-long mission of showing compassion to the less fortunate, has consistently worked with and assisted those on the margins of society. That includes providing legal assistance and advice on an ongoing basis to the citys heavily Catholic Latino community regardless of citizenship.

We help anyone of any creed, religion and immigration status, Swanson said. We are committed to standing in solidarity with the immigrant community.

Rabbi Joe Black, of Temple Emanuel in Denver, said teachings from the Torah about rendering help to the foreigner in our midst is endemic to being a spiritual, religious Jew.

Blacks own mother came to the U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany. Jews have an understanding of the need to support those who are weak and victimized, he said.

Its something weve been asked about and weve talked about (as an organization), Black said.

But so far that hasnt translated to opening then synagogue doors to house people living in the country illegally.

The Colorado Muslim Society has staked out a more direct position on the matter: The states largest Muslim congregation will not risk violating the law in order to shelter someone living in the U.S. illegally.

We do have to follow the law of the land and it is against state and federal regulation to harbor anyone who is in the country illegally, or essentially wanted by authorities, said Iman Jodeh, a spokeswoman for the South Parker Road mosque. So the Colorado Muslim Society would not be a place of sanctuary.

Thats as it should be, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the conservative nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies. With 4 million people on the waiting list for a green card, she said, its unfair to give refuge and assistance to those who entered the country by breaking the law.

Churches that wade into this need to be very careful, Vaughan said. Its one thing to show support for someone in a difficult situation, but its quite another thing to condone behavior that is illegal and that, in the aggregate, has an adverse effect on many Americans in terms of jobs and crime.

Churches, she said, risk running afoul of the nations laws against harboring a criminal.

Religious buildings fall under a sensitive locations policy with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that characterizes houses of worship, schools and hospitals as places to generally be avoided when it comes to taking enforcement actions.But the new administration could abandon that policy whenever it wants.

Alarm bells went off among immigration-rights advocates in February, when ICE agents arrested two people across the street from a church in Alexandria, Va. The action prompted questions from Virginia Gov. Terry McAulifee and a sharp rebuke from U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clintons running mate.

We are hearing some words, the Virginia Democrat told The Associated Press this month, but the words arent matching up with what people are seeing.

For now, the sanctuary movement in Denver is centered on Christian communities that have aless hierarchical organizational structure. In addition to the First Unitarian Society, which is hostingJeanette Vizguerra,who first came to the United States from Mexico 20 years ago, Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver late last yearopened its doors to Ingrid Encalada Latorre, a Peruvian woman in the country illegally since 2000.

Both churches are members of the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition and are the only buildings in the metro area willing to accommodate long-term guests. The coalition, formed in 2014, hasfive other Unitarian churches that serve as supporting congregations.

Mountain View Friends member David Poundstone said his church is careful to avoid the charge of harboring a criminal by making Latorres presence in the church wellknown.

Were actually trying to make a very public statement that says, A person is here, he said. We are not harboring anybody.

Latorre is supported by a network of 30 volunteers who run laundry for her, bring her groceries, care for her children and sleep over at the south Denver church as an added measure of security. But sequestering oneself to a single location for weeks on end is a difficult thing to do and, Poundstone said, may explain why there hasnt been an explosion of people seeking sanctuary across the country.

Its not the best way for everybody, he said. Its not easy living inside a church building and not going out.

The rest is here:
Sanctuary movement for unauthorized immigrants in Colorado may strengthen now that Trump's in charge - The Denver Post

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) Law enforcementupgraded charges in a deadly accident in Columbia County this week. Columbia County Sheriffs Office reportedJuan Jesus Castillo-Reyes is now facing 1st degree vehicular homicide, upgraded from 2nd degree. And hes also now facing reckless driving charges along with driving with an expired license and driving to fast for conditions. The sheriffs office said Castillo-Reyes was the driver of the truck that rear ended Alexander Earles on I-20 in a construction zone on Tuesday, causing a four car pile up. Earles died in the crash.

As we learn more about the charges Castillo-Reyes faces, we wanted to dig deeper into why an undocumented person in the CSRA might continue to live with that status.

A lot of conversations on social media about the I-20 accident and Castillo-Reyes points to him being undocumented and possibly and illegal immigrant. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement has its eye on him, it is simply too early to know if he is an illegal immigrant, but we wanted to ask the tough question; Why stay that way if you are?

NewsChannel 6s Renetta DuBose shared the initial story with local Human Rights Advocate Ed Acevedo.

I agree. If he was in the wrong, he was in the wrong.

Illegal immigrants wont get any sympathy from Acevedo. If they are here doing wrong. But we wanted to know, why isnt becoming an American citizen a priority over finding work and over paying the bills.

Its basically fear, Acevedo told us.

Its a fear, Acevedo said, that comes from the government.

You have to understand, what Im doing is good for the United States, its also going to be good for Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump told media in recent news.

We shared with Acevedo the recent story of Juan Castillo-Reyes. Though Castillo-Reyes immigration status is unknown, we do know hes from Mexico and on an ICE hold after being charged with a felony in the death of 23-year-old Alexander Earles, an airman.

He was struck in an accident and when I say an accident I dont think Mr. Castillo did this on purpose. He just didnt decide Im going to go slam into somebody and try to kill a couple of folks, he explained of the incident.

Several NewsChannel 6 viewers called out Castillo-Reyes as an illegal immigrant. We dont know that for sure, but we wanted to continue the conversation. Why isnt immigration a priority for people who are undocumented?

Most of these folks dont believe in the system right now. Its the same system that is telling them yeah come over here and well process you some papers for maybe the dreamers, but once you get there, ICE is here.

The past two decades in the CSRA have kept Acevedo busy passionately advocating for those working in the shadows of immigration illegally climbing their way to citizenship.

For them, prioritizing is pleasing the boss to get the job done. Whatever it takes. It doesnt matter about my health. It doesnt matter if I have quality time with my family, said Acevedo while painting a picture of the illegal immigrant worker in the U.S.

While many people are still plowing through immigration work in the U.S., Acevedo said those employers taking advantage of the labor should also fight to make the legalization process better.

We see a lot the folks that are against immigrants or illegal immigrants giving them jobs in the dark world that are paying them a misery.

Castillo Reyes has no bond right now in the Columbia County Detention Center and it could stay that way. If bond is assigned and someone post his bond, CCSO will contact ICE, who would make sure he does not go free. ICE waits until the case is disposed of beforedeportation happens.

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Here is a glimpse at why some illegal immigrants might not make ... - WJBF-TV